American manned spaceplane. 33 launches, 1985.10.03 to 2011.07.08. The space shuttle Atlantis was the fourth orbiter to become operational at Kennedy Space Center, and the last of the original production run.

It was named after the primary research vessel for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts from 1930 to 1966. Empty Weight was 68,600 kg at rollout and 77,550 kg with main engines installed.

Atlantis benefited from lessons learned in the construction and testing of Enterprise, Columbia and Challenger. At roll-out, its weight was 3162 kg less than Columbia. The experience gained during the orbiter assembly process enabled Atlantis to be completed with a 49.5 percent reduction in man hours (compared to Columbia). Much of this decrease was attributed to the greater use of thermal protection blankets on the upper orbiter body instead of tiles. During the construction of Discovery and Atlantis, NASA opted to have the various contractors manufacture a set of 'structural spares' to facilitate the repair of an orbiter if one was damaged during an accident. This contract was valued at $389 million and consisted of a spare aft-fuselage, mid-fuselage, forward fuselage halves, vertical tail and rudder, wings, elevons and a body flap. These spares were later assembled into the orbiter Endeavour.

Construction Milestones

01/29/79 Contract Award

03/03/80 Start structural assembly of Crew Module

11/23/81 Start structural assembly of aft-fuselage

06/13/83 Wings arrive at Palmdale from Grumman

12/02/83 Start of Final Assembly

04/10/84 Completed Final Assembly

03/06/85 Rollout from Palmdale

04/03/85 Overland transport from Palmdale to Edwards

04/09/85 Delivery to Kennedy Space Center

09/05/85 Flight Readiness Firing

10/03/85 First Flight (51-J)

Beginning in October 1992, Atlantis was shipped to California to undergo OMDP-1 upgrades and modifications. These included a drag chute, new plumbing lines that configured the orbiter for extended duration, more than 800 new heat protection tiles and blankets, new insulation for the main landing gear doors, and structural modifications to the Atlantis airframe. Altogether, 165 modifications were made to Atlantis over the 20 months it spent in Palmdale, California.

Between November 1997 and September 1998, Atlantis underwent OMDP-2 in Palmdale to prepare it for operational ISS missions. Changes included installation of the final configuration ISS airlock and docking system and installation of the first 'glass cockpit' electronic displays for the crew. The latter replaced the 1970's vintage conventional gauges and instruments. Modifications were made in preparation for replacement of TACAN navigation with GPS. To reduce weight for ISS missions, most AFRSI insulation blankets on the upper surfaces of the orbiter were replaced with FRSI, lightweight crew seats were installed, the Extended Duration Mission provisions installed during OMDP-1 were removed, and numerous other smaller-scale changes aimed at reducing weight.

Shuttle The manned reusable space system which was designed to slash the cost of space transport and replace all expendable launch vehicles. It did neither, but did keep NASA in the manned space flight business for 30 years. More...

STS-27 Crew: Gardner Guy, Gibson, Mullane, Ross, Shepherd. Manned military mission, five crew. Robot arm used to deploy a classified satellite. At T+85 seconds a large piece of SRB nose cone struck the shuttle. The orbiter took 707 hits; one tile was knocked off. The crew was unsure if they would survive reentry. More...

STS-30 Crew: Cleave, Grabe, Lee, Thagard, Walker Dave. Manned five crew. Deployed Magellan Venus probe. One of five General Purpose Computers failed and had to be replaced with a sixth onboard hardware spare. First time a GPC was switched on orbit. More...

STS-38 Crew: Covey, Culbertson, Gemar, Meade, Springer. Manned five crew. Deployed a classified payload. Launch delayed from July 1990 for series of technical problems. First post-Challenger landing at KSC after mission extended one day due to unacceptable crosswinds at original planned landing site, Edwards. More...

STS-110 Crew: Bloomfield, Frick, Morin, Ochoa, Ross, Smith Steven, Walheim. ISS Assembly flight. Carried the S0 truss segment to the ISS, the first segment of the main backbone of the station to which the solar arrays would be attached. More...

STS-117 Crew: Sturckow, Archambault, Forrester, Swanson, Olivas, Reilly. Final major step in assembly of the ISS truss and power-generating solar array segments. The S3/S4 Truss and its solar arrays were delivered and installed. More...

STS-125 Crew: Altman, Johnson Gregory C, Grunsfeld, Massimino, Feustel, Good, McArthur. Fourth and final servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. Only shuttle mission authorized prior to shuttle retirement not to go to the ISS - therefore with no means of space rescue should the heat shield be damaged during ascent to orbit. More...

STS-132 Crew: Ham; Antonelli; Good; Sellers; Bowen; Reisman. Deliver to the ISS and install Node 3 with Cupola. With this mission ISS assembly is to have been completed. More...

STS-135 Last flight of shuttle Atlantis and last space shuttle flight. Delivered supplies to keep ISS running at six-crew level until commercial resupply was to come on line in 2012. Crew: Ferguson; Hurley; Walheim; Magnus. Extra contingency mission at end of shuttle program. The crew trained as STS-335, a rescue mission to return the STS-134 crew to earth if they became marooned in space. After the safe return of STS-134, the mission proceeded as STS-135, with a reduced crew that could be returned over an 18 month period aboard Soyuz capsules in case the crew could not return in Atlantis. More...

Associated Launch Vehicles

Shuttle American winged orbital launch vehicle. The manned reusable space system which was designed to slash the cost of space transport and replace all expendable launch vehicles. It did neither, but did keep NASA in the manned space flight business for 30 years. Redesign of the shuttle with reliability in mind after the Challenger disaster reduced maximum payload to low earth orbit from 27,850 kg to 24,400 kg. More...

Associated Manufacturers and Agencies

NASA American agency overseeing development of rockets and spacecraft. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, USA, USA. More...

North American American manufacturer of rockets, spacecraft, and rocket engines. North American, Palmdale, El Segundo. Downey, CA, USA More...

Associated Programs

ISS Finally completed in 2010 after a torturous 25-year development and production process, the International Space Station was originally conceived as the staging post for manned exploration of the solar systrem. Instead, it was seemed to be the death knell of manned spaceflight. More...

Mir The Mir space station was the last remnant of the once mighty Soviet space programme. It was built to last only five years, and was to have been composed of modules launched by Proton and Buran/Energia launch vehicles. These modules were derived from those originally designed by Chelomei in the 1960's for the Almaz military station programme. As the Soviet Union collapsed Mir stayed in orbit, but the final modules were years late and could only be completed with American financial assistance. Kept flying over a decade beyond its rated life, Mir proved a source of pride to the Russian people and proved the ability of their cosmonauts and engineers to improvise and keep operations going despite all manner of challenges and mishaps. More...

STS The Space Transportation System (Space Shuttle) was conceived originally as a completely reusable system that would provide cheap, routine access to space and replace all American and civilian military launch vehicles. Crippled by technological overreach, political compromise, and budget limitations, it instead ended up costing more than the expendable rockets it was to have replaced. STS sucked the money out of all other NASA projects for half a century. The military abandoned its use after the Challenger shuttle explosion in the 1980's. More...

Associated Propellants

N2O4/MMH Nitrogen tetroxide became the storable liquid propellant of choice from the late 1950's. Monomethylhydrazine (CH3NHNH2) is a storable liquid fuel that found favour in the United States for use in orbital spacecraft engines. Its advantages in comparison to UDMH are higher density and slightly higher performance. More...

Cape Canaveral America's largest launch center, used for all manned launches. Today only six of the 40 launch complexes built here remain in use. Located at or near Cape Canaveral are the Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island, used by NASA for Saturn V and Space Shuttle launches; Patrick AFB on Cape Canaveral itself, operated the US Department of Defense and handling most other launches; the commercial Spaceport Florida; the air-launched launch vehicle and missile Drop Zone off Mayport, Florida, located at 29.00 N 79.00 W, and an offshore submarine-launched ballistic missile launch area. All of these take advantage of the extensive down-range tracking facilities that once extended from the Cape, through the Caribbean, South Atlantic, and to South Africa and the Indian Ocean. More...

Cape Canaveral LC39B Shuttle, Saturn V, Saturn I launch complex. LC39A and LC39B, part of the Kennedy Space Center, were built on Merritt Island (north/northwest of the Cape) to support the Saturn V/Apollo lunar landing program in 1963-1966. The sites were modified in the last half of the 1970s to support the manned Space Shuttle program. More...

Cape Canaveral LC39A Shuttle, Saturn V launch complex. LC39A and LC39B, part of the Kennedy Space Center, were built on Merritt Island (north/northwest of the Cape) to support the Saturn V/Apollo lunar landing program. The sites were modified in the last half of the 1970s to support the manned Space Shuttle program. Construction began in December 1963. Complex 39A was completed on 4 October 1965. Complex 39A supported two unmanned and nine manned Saturn V/Apollo missions between 9 November 1967 and 8 December 1972. The site also supported the launch of the Skylab space station on 14 May 1973. Both complexes were modified to support Space Shuttle missions later on. Complex 39A supported the first Space Shuttle launch on 12 April 1981. More...

STS-81 - .
Call Sign: Atlantis. Crew: Baker, Mike; Jett; Wisoff; Grunsfeld; Ivins; Linenger. Payload: Atlantis F18 / Spacehab Double Module. Nation: USA. Related Persons: Baker, Mike; Jett; Wisoff; Grunsfeld; Ivins; Linenger. Agency: NASA Houston. Program: Mir. Class: Manned. Type: Manned spaceplane. Flight: Mir NASA-2; Mir EO-22; STS-81; Mir NASA-3. Spacecraft: Atlantis. Duration: 10.20 days. Decay Date: 1997-01-22 . USAF Sat Cat: 24711 . COSPAR: 1997-001A. Apogee: 380 km (230 mi). Perigee: 343 km (213 mi). Inclination: 51.7000 deg. Period: 91.80 min. After a night launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis, the Shuttle docked with Mir at 03:55 GMT on January 14. STS-81 transferred 2,715 kg of equipment to and from the Mir, the largest transfer of items to that date. During the docked phase, 640 kg of water, 515 kg of U.S. science equipment, 1,000 kg of Russian logistics, and 120 kg of miscellaneous material were transferred to Mir. Returned to Earth aboard Atlantis were 570 kg of U.S. science material, 405 kg of Russian logistics and 98 kg of miscellaneous material. At 02:16 GMT January 19, Atlantis separated from Mir after picking up John Blaha, who had arrived aboard STS-79 on September 19, 1996, and dropping off Jerry Linenger, who was to stay aboard Mir for over four months. The Shuttle backed off along the -RBAR (i.e. toward the Earth) to a distance of 140 m before beginning a flyaround at 02:31 GMT. Most of the flyaround was at a distance from Mir of 170 m. The first 'orbit' around Mir was complete at 03:15, and the second was completed at 04:02 GMT. Then the Orbiter fired its jets to drift away from the orbit of Mir. NASA's first Shuttle mission of 1997 came to a close with a landing at the Kennedy Space Center at 14:22 GMT on January 22 (after the first opportunity was waved off due to cloud cover at the Cape).

Atlantis undocked from Mir at 17:28 GMT on October 3 and conducted a flyaround focused on the damaged Spektr Module to determine the location of the puncture in its hull. The Mir crew pumped air into the Spektr Module using a pressure regulator valve, and the Shuttle crew observed evidence that, as expected, the leak seemed to be located at the base of the damaged solar panel. Final separation of Atlantis from Mir took place around 20:28 GMT. After two landing attempts were waved off on October 5 due to heavy cloud cover, the crew fired the engines to deorbit at 20:47 GMT on October 6 and landed at Kennedy Space Center at 21:55.

Atlantis OMDP-2 - .
Nation: USA. Program: STS. Spacecraft: Atlantis. Summary: Atlantis is overhauled at Palmdale, returning to service in mid-1998. This was the last OMDP accomplished at Palmdale; future work would be done at the Kennedy Space Center..

On May 22 mission specialists Jeff Williams and James carried out external maintenance work on the ISS.

On May 23 at 00:03 GMT the Atlantis crew opened the first hatch to PMA-2 and entered the Station. The crew replaced a set of batteries in Zarya, installed fans and ducting to improve airflow, and delivered supplies and equipment. Three hour-long orbit raising burns on May 24 and 25 by the RCS engines on Atlantis raised the station to a 372 x 380 km x 51.6 deg orbit.

The STS-101 crew left the station on May 26, closing the PMA-2 hatch at 08:08 GMT and undocking at 23:03 GMT. Atlantis performed a 180 degree flyaround of the station and departed the vicinity around 23:44 GMT.

Atlantis closed its payload bay doors around 02:30 GMT on May 29 and fired the OMS engines for deorbit at 05:12 GMT. The vehicle landed on RW15 at Kennedy Space Center at 06:20 GMT. Atlantis was to be turned around for the next ISS shuttle flight, STS-106.

Left in orbit was the renovated International Space Station, equipped with an upgraded electrical system, new fans, filters, fire extinguishers, smoke detectors and communications gear.

Atlantis docked with the PMA-2 adapter on the International Space Station at 05:51 GMT on September 10. The orbiter's small RCS engines were used to gently reboost the station's orbit several times.

Astronauts Lu and Malenchenko made a spacewalk on September 11 beginning at 04:47 GMT. They rode the RMS arm up to Zvezda and began installing cables, reaching a distance of 30 meters from the airlock when installing Zvezda's magnetometer. Total EVA duration was 6 hours 21 minutes.

During their 12-day flight, the astronauts spent a week docked to the International Space Station during which they worked as movers, cleaners, plumbers, electricians and cable installers. In all, they spent 7 days, 21 hours and 54 minutes docked to the International Space Station, outfitting the new Zvezda module for the arrival of the Expedition One crew later this fall.

The Shuttle undocked from ISS at 03:44 GMT on September 18 and made two circuits of the station each lasting half an orbit, before separating finally at 05:34 GMT. The payload bay doors were closed at 04:14 GMT on September 20 and at 06:50 GMT the OMS engines ignited for a three minute burn lowering the orbit from 374 x 386 km x 51.6 deg to 22 x 380 km x 51.6 deg. After entry interface at 07:25 GMT, the orbiter glided to a landing on runway 15 at Kennedy Space Center with main gear touchdown at 07:56:48 GMT for a mission duration of 283 hr 11min.

STS-98 - .
Call Sign: Atlantis. Crew: Cockrell; Polansky; Curbeam; Ivins; Jones. Payload: Atlantis F23. Mass: 90,225 kg (198,912 lb). Nation: USA. Related Persons: Cockrell; Polansky; Curbeam; Ivins; Jones. Agency: NASA Houston. Manufacturer: Boeing. Program: ISS. Class: Manned. Type: Manned spaceplane. Flight: STS-98. Spacecraft: Atlantis. Duration: 12.89 days. Decay Date: 2001-02-20 . USAF Sat Cat: 26698 . COSPAR: 2001-006A. Apogee: 337 km (209 mi). Perigee: 183 km (113 mi). Inclination: 51.3000 deg. Period: 89.71 min. ISS Assembly flight. Launch delayed from January 18 and February 6. International Space Station assembly mission; delivered the Destiny and PMA-2 modules. Destiny was an American ISS module, an 8.4 meter long and 4.2 meter wide cylindrical structure with a mass of 15 tonnes. It was to function as a science and technology module and the primary control module for the ISS. The shuttle orbiter was placed in an initial 74 x 323 km x 51.6 deg orbit. At 2357 GMT the OMS engines fired for the OMS-2 burn which raised Atlantis' orbit to 204 x 322 km x 51.6 deg. Atlantis docked with the Station at 1651 GMT on February 9 at the PMA-3 port on Unity's nadir. At 1500 GMT on Feb 10 Marsha Ivins used the RMS arm to unberth the PMA-2 docking port from Unity. Tom Jones and Bob Curbeam then conducted three spacewalks on Februay 10 to 14 to attach the Destiny and PMA-2 modules to the station. The crew also delivered over a tonne of food, fuel and equipment to the ISS. Atlantis undocked from Alpha at 1406 GMT on February 16. Atlantis landed at Edwards AFB on February 20; plans to land on February 18 and 19 were called off due to persistent wind problems at Kennedy Space Center. The deorbit burn was at 1927 GMT and lowered the orbit from 370 x 386 km to about 50 x 380 km. The nominal entry interface at 122 km came at 2002 GMT and touchdown on runway 22 was at 20:33 GMT. On March 1 Atlantis was flown on the back of NASA's SCA 911 carrier aircraft to Altus AFB, Oklahoma, en route to Kennedy.

The Equipment Lock was berthed to the Unity module at one of the large-diameter CBM hatches. STS-104 then installed the Airlock onto the Unity module. In a series of spacewalks the astronauts moved the oxygen and nitrogen tanks onto the airlock exterior.

The six tonne Airlock consisted of two cylinders of four meters diameter and a total length six meters. The Airlock could be pressurized by the externally-mounted high pressure oxygen-nitrogen tanks, and was to be the sole unit through which all future EVAs were to take place. (Until that point, all EVA entries/exits had been through a Russian module in ISS, with non-Russians having to wear Russian space suits). Another payload was the "EarthKAM" of middle/high school interest. It was to allow pupils to command picture-taking of chosen spots on Earth; they were expected to target 2,000 spots. The shuttle also carried out pulsed exhaust tests during maneuvers to enable better understanding of the formation of HF echoes from the shuttle exhaust. The echoes were obtained by ground based radars in an experiment called SIMPLEX (Shuttle Ionospheric Modification with Pulsed Local EXhaust). The STS-104 crew returned to Atlantis on July 22, and undocked at 0455 GMT. After flying around the station they departed the vicinity at 0615 GMT. Atlantis landed at 0338:55 GMT on July 25, touching down at Kennedy Space Center runway 15.

Bay 4-13: S0 Truss - 12623 kg. The S0 truss, built by Boeing/Huntington Beach, was 13.4 m long and 4.6 m in diameter. The main truss had a hexagonal cross section. One face carried fluid, power and data cables, while another face carried the rails for the Mobile Transporter. The S0 contained avionics, GPS antennae, and a radiation dose monitor. The S0 would be attached to the LCA (Lab Cradle Assembly) which was attached to the top of the Destiny lab module in 2001. Attached to S0 were:

4 x MTS (Module to Truss Structure) struts. These were used to connect it to the Destiny module

Airlock Spur. This was a 4.2 m beam that hinged out to connect to the Quest module and had handrails for spacewalkers

Mobile Transporter (MT). This was made by TRW Astro Aerospace in Carpinteria and was an 885 kg, 2.7 m long truck which moved on the S0 rails to transfer heavy cargo along the truss.

STS-131 (cancelled) - .
Nation: USA. Agency: NASA. Program: ISS. Flight: STS-131A. Spacecraft: Atlantis. Summary: Flight delayed after the Columbia disaster. No crew had been named at the time of the loss of Columbia. STS-131 was to have flown ISS assembly mission ISS-14A. 4 SPP Arrays and the MMOD would have been delivered to the station..

STS-115 - .
Call Sign: Atlantis. Crew: Jett; Ferguson; Stefanyshyn-Piper; Tanner; Burbank; MacLean. Payload: Atlantis F27 / P3, P4. Mass: 122,400 kg (269,800 lb). Nation: USA. Related Persons: Jett; Ferguson; Stefanyshyn-Piper; Tanner; Burbank; MacLean. Agency: NASA. Manufacturer: Boeing. Program: ISS. Class: Manned. Type: Manned spaceplane. Flight: STS-115; ISS EO-14; ISS EO-13. Spacecraft: Atlantis. Duration: 11.80 days. Decay Date: 2006-09-21 . USAF Sat Cat: 29391 . COSPAR: 2006-036A. Apogee: 350 km (210 mi). Perigee: 335 km (208 mi). Inclination: 51.6000 deg. Period: 91.40 min. Atlantis docked with the International Space Station at the PMA-2 port at 10:48 GMT on 11 September. At the Shuttle RMS robot arm connected to the enormous P3/P4 truss in the payload pay and handed it off to the Station's robot arm between 14:52 and 15:03 GMT the same day. The station arm then connected to the P3/P4 truss to the station's P1 truss at 07:27 on 12 September. Three EVA's were made by the shuttle crew over the next three days to complete installation of the truss and deply its solar panels. The Shuttle undocked from the station at 12:50 GMT on 20 September. There was a one-day delay in landing due to weather at the Cape and some concern about several small objects seen floating near the spacecraft. These were believed to be plastic shims that had worked loose from between the tiles and were not a concern. Atlantis landed at Kennedy Space Center at 10:21 GMT on 21 September.

Late 2006 - .

STS-134 (cancelled) - .
Nation: USA. Agency: NASA. Program: ISS. Flight: STS-134A. Spacecraft: Atlantis. Summary: Flight delayed after the Columbia disaster. No crew had been named at the time of the loss of Columbia. STS-134 was to have flown ISS assembly mission ISS-16A. The Habitation module would have been delivered to the station..

STS-137 (cancelled) - .
Nation: USA. Agency: NASA. Program: ISS. Flight: STS-137A. Spacecraft: Atlantis. Summary: Flight delayed after the Columbia disaster. No crew had been named at the time of the loss of Columbia. STS-137 was to have flown ISS assembly mission ISS-19A. An MPLM and other station hardware would be delivered..